YouTuber gattobus got his hands on the new Roland TR-8S sampling drum machine. The $700 device combines the classic Roland drum machines with a sample-based synth engine, which is a pretty killer combo for recreating EDM and House tracks. He put it to use in this domain by covering Deadmau5's Pets.

Video Description:

This is the very first song I programmed and played with my new Roland TR-8S Sampler Drum Machine. All you hear comes from this little beast only!!! Recorded Straight to my MOTU audio interface.TR-8S is truly an incredible instrument, even better than I thought.There's a little synth engine inside it (sample based), with built in ACB filters, envelopes, LFO, lot of FXs... and it sounds huge! It can be used like a groovebox!!! I love it!!! :-)In this video I also used some samples recorded from Roland System-8 (Jupiter-8 mode).I hope you like it!!! ;-)

Developer ROLI emailed me, sans limerick, with exciting news of a new soundpack created by famed produced Lido. Lido's credits include production for Chance the Rapper, Halsey, and Ariana Grande. His sounds are billed as evocative, with the word "emotional" appearing twice in the YouTube description. In fact ROLI pitched the soundpack to me as, "drawing from his emotionally-infused album Everything." All of this was apparently an elaborate early April Fools joke, because it sounds like the fucking Chipmunks. Well played, ROLI.

Video Description:

Play the sounds of Lido’s stunning debut album, from distorted basses and soaring synths to sugar-sweet vocal stabs. Crafted by Lido himself, this pack has “Everything” you need to create gospel-infused electronic magic.

Lido is a 25-year-old Norwegian singer-producer based in Los Angeles. He made his name as a producer for artists like Chance the Rapper, Halsey, and Ariana Grande — weaving his voice into chart topping tracks. Everything excited the music world because it marked the emergence of an artist whose intriguing signatures were unmistakable in others’ work. Still, no one was quite expecting this emotional appeal from the core of a mind on fire.

Lido’s voice is distilled in Everything by Lido, the new NOISE soundpack based on the album. “R&B-infused; electronic” gets you some of the way toward understanding the album’s — and the soundpack’s — sound.

“I wanted to make emotional electronic music,” Lido says. “Everything is a concept album about going through a loss or a breakup. In my case it was a breakup where I felt like I had to get over everything. I worked a lot with the textures and the sound design of the album to give it a cinematic feeling that still feels intimate and personal.”

“There are some fun stories behind most of the sounds in the pack,” he says. “The vocal chops in the Murder Drum Kit come from a freestyle rap I did when I was 14. My favorite sound is the bike bells from Citi Bike Bass. We went to every toy store and bike store in LA, looking for bike bells that would be perfectly in key with this song, and we sampled them. Those are the bike bells that you hear. It was incredibly challenging and fun to experiment how to give all these sounds more dimensions with the Blocks.”

Everything by Lido is now available in the NOISE Soundpack Store for $6.99 (£5.99, €6.99)